Thumbnails Mar 18

by Tony Medley

Red Sparrow (9/10): Not much need be written about a movie this good from an equally good book with some additional twists I don’t remember from the book. There are fine performances by Jennifer Lawrence (of whom you see more than you’ve ever seen before), Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts (especially!), and the rest of the cast. There was a little too much graphic violence for me, but all in all, this should stand up as one of the most entertaining of the year.

The 15:17 to Paris (7/10): Director Clint Eastwood hires the heroes themselves as his stars and they perform admirably. He also takes on Hollywood who was so offended by someone showing an Islamic terrorist as a bad guy that they tried to torpedo the film by giving it an “R” rating. Even though only about 12 out of 900 rated movies get challenged, Clint won and got his PG-13 rating. I found this movie to be slow as it builds up to the climax, but I guess that is necessary to show how these three are just ordinary American men who, when heroic acts were required, stepped up to the plate without thought of their personal safety and put down a heavily armed terrorist.

Den of Thieves (7/10): Full of plot holes aplenty, and in need of serious editing, after about the first hour when the bad guys led by Pablo Schreiber start to execute their devious plan, the film is captivating even though the dénouement contains absurdly ridiculous violence that would never happen on a Los Angeles street, or any street in America. There’s a B story about star Gerard Butler’s wife that has no bearing on the story whatsoever. Even so, it’s a fun film to watch.

The Leisure Seeker (6/10): I went to see this because of Helen Mirren. No matter how bad the movie, she generally makes it worthwhile. This one delivers a wonderfully realistic presentation of one spouse lovingly dealing with the other who has constant memory failures that can’t help but being annoying, and is becoming more and more common. On the down side, it closes with what appears to be a political pitch for a controversial action that would be a terminal spoiler if I wrote about it, so I won’t. This could have been a terrific movie had it been more tightly directed and edited, and if it had left out the preachy ending.

Annihilation (5/10): The first of a proposed trilogy, this is an inscrutable sci-fi excursion that is filled with tension and outstanding special effects and production design without making a bit of sense. From director Alex Garland, who created the outstanding “Ex Machina,” some of the scenes intended to terrify are so grotesque they could pass as homages to “Alien,” and come close to crossing the line to satire.

The Commuter (5/10): Every few years since Taken (2008) was a surprise runaway hit 10 years ago, Liam Neeson has come out with a similar type thriller. He is always a man alone facing insurmountable odds. Each time the resulting film has been a little weaker than the one that came before. This one is simply preposterous. There’s a lot of action. Unfortunately, almost every scene is devoid of common sense including the ending. And, speaking of endings, maybe it’s time that Neeson puts an end to these weak follow-ups to Taken, or find better material.

Django (5/10): This is the highly fictionalized biopic of a short period of the life of guitarist Django Reinhart (Reda Kateb) during WWII. While there was such a person, apparently nobody knows what he really looked like (there are only two photographs of him extant) or sounded like. It’s a semi-tense escape story but it leaves a lot of holes that go pretty much unexplained, maybe because director Étienne Cobar made the entire thing up.